"Merry and happy, old man?"
"Maybe as high as that, no higher," said the old man, holding out his hand a little way above the level of his knee, and looking retrospectively at his questioner, "when I first remember ′em! Cold, sunshiny day it was, out a-walking, when some one—it was my mother as sure as you stand there, though I don′t know what her blessed face was like, for she took ill and died that Christmas- time—told me they were food for birds. The pretty little fellow thought—that′s me, you understand—that birds′ eyes were so bright, perhaps, because the berries that they lived on in the winter were so bright. I recollect that. And I′m eighty-seven!"
"Merry and happy!" mused the other, bending his dark eyes upon the stooping figure, with a smile of compassion. "Merry and happy—and remember well?"
"Ay, ay, ay!" resumed the old man, catching the last words. "I remember ′em well in my school time, year after year, and all the merry-making that used to come along with them. I was a strong chap then, Mr. Redlaw; and, if you′ll believe me, hadn′t my match at football within ten mile. Where′s my son William? Hadn′t my match at football, William, within ten mile!"
"That′s what I always say, father!" returned the son promptly, and with great respect. "You ARE a Swidger, if ever there was one of the family!"
"Dear!" said the old man, shaking his head as he again looked at the holly. "His mother—my son William′s my youngest son—and I, have sat among ′em all, boys and girls, little children and babies, many a year, when the berries like these were not shining half so bright all round us, as their bright faces. Many of ′em are gone; she′s gone; and my son George (our eldest, who was her pride more than all the rest!) is fallen very low: but I can see them, when I look here, alive and healthy, as they used to be in those days; and I can see him, thank God, in his innocence. It′s a blessed thing to me, at eighty-seven."
The keen look that had been fixed upon him with so much earnestness, had gradually sought the ground.
"When my circumstances got to be not so good as formerly, through not being honestly dealt by, and I first come here to be custodian," said the old man, "—which was upwards of fifty years ago—where′s my son William? More than half a century ago, William!"
"That′s what I say, father," replied the son, as promptly and dutifully as before, "that′s exactly where it is. Two times ought′s an ought, and twice five ten, and there′s a hundred of ′em."
"It was quite a pleasure to know that one of our founders—or more correctly speaking," said the old man, with a great glory in his subject and his knowledge of it, "one of the learned gentlemen that helped endow us in Queen Elizabeth′s time, for we were founded afore her day—left in his will, among the other bequests he made us, so much to buy holly, for garnishing the walls and windows, come Christmas. There was something homely and friendly in it. Being but strange here, then, and coming at Christmas time, we took a liking for his very picter that hangs in what used to be, anciently, afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted for an annual stipend in money, our great Dinner Hall.—A sedate gentleman in a peaked beard, with a ruff round his neck, and a scroll below him, in old English letters, ′Lord! keep my memory green!′ You know all about him, Mr. Redlaw?"
"I know the portrait hangs there, Philip."
"Yes, sure, it′s the second on the right, above the panelling.
© e-libr.com
feedback